I use this blog to gather information and thoughts about invention and innovation, the subjects I've been teaching at Stanford University Continuing Studies Program since 2005.
The current course is Principles of Invention and Innovation (Summer '17).
Our book "Scalable Innovation" is now available on Amazon http://www.amazon.com/Scalable-Innovation-Inventors-Entrepreneurs-Professionals/dp/1466590971/

Wednesday, November 13, 2013

(BN) Pivotal Vies to Bring EMC, VMware Into Cloud Software

(Bloomberg ) Pivotal, the spinout of EMC Corp. (EMC) and VMware Inc. (VMW), is introducing software to help its parents gain relevance in cloud computing.

Starting Nov. 15, Pivotal will help businesses create Web-based applications that can be moved from in-house data centers to cloud servers run by Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN), VMware and OpenStack, the open-source project founded by Rackspace Hosting Inc., Scott Yara, a senior vice president at Pivotal, said in an interview.

Pivotal, based in San Francisco and run by Paul Maritz, was established by EMC and VMWare late last year to tap surging demand for Internet-based programs as growth slows in their traditional businesses. Pivotal is trying to attract developers who want to build applications that can move between internal servers and those rented from other companies, without having to rewrite the programs.

"I have called it the Android of the cloud," said Yara, likening the software, called Pivotal CF, to Google's (GOOG) open-source mobile operating system. "The question is how do you build an open model that allows applications to move from corporate data centers to public cloud and across different public clouds."

Amazon has built a multi-billion dollar business called Amazon Web Services by letting companies offload their data center needs and rent servers and storage by the hour. Microsoft and Google are competing in the market and will most likely be added to Pivotal's offerings next year, Yara said.

Additional Support

Pivotal CF is a professional version of open-source software developed by VMware. The company said it will continue to back the open-source version and will announce additional support from Intel Corp. (INTC), SAP AG, International Business Machines Corp. and General Electric Co., which invested in Pivotal.

Pivotal will also offer Pivotal One services for tasks like data analytics, messaging and databases.

Maritz, the former CEO of VMware, took the helm of Pivotal in December when EMC and VMware confirmed the spinoff. Maritz, who was previously the No. 3 executive at Microsoft, has said he is not interested in the CEO job there, which is being vacated by Steve Ballmer, people familiar with Maritz's thinking said last week.